


Ten Moments That Made College Bearable for Karkat Vantas

by magicites



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Cliche, M/M, Plotless Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-04
Updated: 2011-12-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 21:02:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/287862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicites/pseuds/magicites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since the universe knows just how terrible Karkat Vantas is, the unseen forces of fate decide to make him live with Dave Strider.</p><p>Little did he know that Mr. Insufferable Prick would end up being the main reason he survived college.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ten Moments That Made College Bearable for Karkat Vantas

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated and written for my amazing palhoncho/betabuddy. For her birthday, she wanted a Dave/Karkat fic with them living as dormmates in college, so I wrote her this cliche piece of shit.
> 
> This is the first Homestuck fic I've ever written, as well as the first actual piece of writing I've finished in months. I wasn't very confident in the beginning, but I soon discovered that Dave is a ton of fun to write. :) That, and writing this gave me a new-found appreciation for this pairing.
> 
> I apologize in advance for any tense mistakes, because I kept trying to write in present tense for this entire fic. I also apologize for any formatting mistakes; I'm still getting used to this website, and I'm terrible with HTML and CSS.

Long ago, all the way back in junior year of high school, you found yourself roped into a deal by a certain shithive maggots moron you call a friend. You and the aforementioned moron, along with his other best friend Mr. Insufferable Prick, were all going to apply to all the same colleges in hopes that you would be able to stay together through those next four or so years of university. 

Rather than actually follow through with his plans like a sane, barely functioning fucking waste of space, John Egbert instead decided to become valedictorian of a school with a graduating class of over a thousand. The second that was announced, prestigious colleges from across the fucking world were thirsty for some Egbert brain, trying to persuade him with full ride scholarships and shitty brochures of their _~*fabulous*~_ colleges. Since he had a single brain cell living in that empty head of his, he dropped you two like the think-pan damaged wrigglers you were and went to actually get a decent education.

Not that it mattered, since he was planning on becoming a stand up comedian. “Still,” he had told you the day he left, arms full of luggage as he made his way over to his flight, “it’ll make my Dad happy! He always said I needed a reliable degree to fall back on.” 

That left you and The Prick (not Strider, he had lost his privilege to a normal human name after sweeps of being the undefeated champion in the Douche Olympics) enrolled in the same college, and it was too late to try to apply to any others. 

And since the universe knows just how much of a shitbag you truly are, it decided to dropkick you in the face one more time by making The Prick your roommate. 

So on the first day, armed with the two and a half suitcases full of random shit Crabdad had decided you’d need, you went into your room, locked the door, and began mentally sectioning off the room so you wouldn’t ever have to be within five feet of The Prick. 

It was a single room dorm, large enough for two beds (besides sugary confectionaries, the only superior things humans had ever invented were beds that had the calming properties of sopor slime in them, now a requirement in every troll-friendly college in the country) to be comfortably squeezed in, as well as a few simple desks and maybe even another bed or two, if you thought about it. 

There was also a bathroom off to the side, and a quick inspection revealed that it had not only a standard ablution trap, but something that Egbert’s slightly-less idiotic sister Harley had once lovingly referred to as, “the best place to unwind after a long day, but only if there are bubbles!” 

(“Spending time stewing in my own filth sounds like a fucking delightful way to relax,” you had snapped back. She crossed her arms, huffed, and then called you a fuckass. You’d say you were pretty good friends.) 

“I know you must be dying to find a bucket after finding out that I’m your roommate, Vantas, but I already checked with the staff and they keep them downstairs.” 

Goddamnit. You were hoping he’d take longer to arrive. 

“Shut the fuck up,” you snapped back instantly, your words ricocheting his disgusting insinuations out of your head and clear out the window, just like you wish you could do to the rest of him. 

“I missed you too,” he replied, and you could almost swear you saw his lips twitch a fraction of an inch up into a smirk. But no, his poker face was clearly in place, any emotion hidden behind a stiff lip and a pair of shitty sunglasses. 

You growled under your breath, and as you grabbed your shit and dumped it unceremoniously on the bed you deemed as rightfully belonging to you, you felt a faint breeze brush against your neck. 

The window wasn’t open when you first came in here. 

“It’s too fucking hot to keep the window open,” you grumbled, slamming the window shut and making the glass inside shake with the force. 

“Dorm staff figured that since we already knew each other, we’d be complete bros and open the door when the other knocked, so they only made one key. I would have kicked the door down, but I figured I’d live out my childhood dream of being Spider Man and climb up the walls instead.” 

You did a double take, just to make sure that he wasn’t shitting you. Sure enough, he stood there, arms folded over his chest in the perfect picture of icy composure and apathy. 

“You seriously climbed in-“ 

“-Through the window. Took off my suit before you noticed, but now that I’ve admitted my secret identity to you, I better get something in return.” He stuck his hand out, and motioned towards you. “C’mon, give up the keys.” 

“What if I need to get back in?” You protested. “I can’t climb through the 10 th story window like you, shitstain. I was taught to enter through the door like a civil troll, but clearly your human-lusus and his puppet were too busy filming smuppet porn to teach you that.” 

You expected the insult to sting him, even just a little, but he didn’t move a muscle. Instead, the insult slid off of him like water off the feathers of a quackbeast, and he sat down on his own bed and opened one of his suitcases. 

You watched him for a few minutes as he pulled out a metric fuckton of cords like a cheap magician pulling ribbons out of his hat at a wriggling day party. After a small pile had accumulated on the floor, you finally decided to speak again. 

“What the fuck are you doing now?” You asked, eying the cords suspiciously. 

He shrugged. “Decided against going out there into the unforgiving urban jungle of college interaction. All of the ladies on campus must be crying at this sudden development, but I couldn’t resist the call of Mario Kart.” 

You ended up walking closer, and silently cursed your legs for acting without consulting your brain first. 

“Wanna play, Vantas? I have two controllers.” 

Human Mario Kart could never compare to Troll Mario Kart, but it still ended up being fun. 

* 

You were the tiniest bit proud (and upset, but you locked that thought away deep in the far, damp corners of your think-pan, nestled tightly against that time you saw Strider at Prom and realized that he is very attractive in a red tuxedo) that you hadn’t been able to make a single friend in the three weeks you’d been at college. 

Strider, who had earned his name back by letting you play Mario Kart whenever you wanted, even at 3 in the morning when he was out like a light and you couldn’t sleep _because_ _trolls are naturally nocturnal, you blithering moron, I don’t have a fucking sleeping problem so shut up_ didn’t count as a friend. No, he was a roommate. Nothing more. 

However, unlike you, he was a roommate who had managed to make friends. You hadn’t met them yet, but after the time one followed him back to your room and stood outside the door, cackling like a demonic hellspawn cheerleader, you decided you never wanted to meet them. 

“Vantas, I know your bulge aches for fat plumber ass but you really need to get out of this dorm sometime and meet some people.” 

When you thought about it, you realized that you hadn’t actually left your dorm for anything besides going to class since you had gotten to college. 

“How the fuck am I supposed to meet new people? Go out there and stand around like some moron in the middle of the food court, flailing my arms and loudly proclaiming my new status as the most socially retarded troll on campus?” It was true; making friends had never been easy for you. Most of your friends in high school were met through either Egbert or Maryam, and now that they were gone, all you had was whatever the hell this douchebag wanted to be. 

“How about this – come with me for lunch today, and meet some of my friends. Now with half the derp and twice the appreciation for irony.” 

“Ooh, introducing the roommate to your friends. Next you’ll have me Skyping your brother and showing him the hate-gagement ring you bought for me.” 

It was only a joke, but you realize approximately two seconds after it left your mouth that it sounded about five levels higher on the seriousness scale than you intended it to be. 

“I’m not looking for a candlelit hate-date from you. I only want flowers and enough chocolates to make me the fattest woman on campus.” 

“Fuck you. Those chocolates are mine.” 

“I expect a bouquet of red roses, arranged in the shape of a heart.” 

You wondered how far he would take this joke in the name of irony. Probably far enough to call up Kanaya and demand her to fly out to you in order to fit you for a one of a kind, hand-sewn dress. 

You met his friends later that day, and even though Terezi Pyrope is one of the creepiest girls you’ve ever met (turns out, she’s the one with the creepy shriek-laugh), Tavros Nitram is the biggest fucking wimp in history, and Aradia Megdio is _way_ too into Indiana Jones for your comfort, you ended up having fun. 

* 

Due to his strange human sleep schedule (or maybe it’s strange even to humans), Strider was always up before you. Sure, most nights you stayed up until 3 in the morning, but the second your head hit the million pillows you managed to hoard and fit onto your bed, you were done. 

Even if you never stayed asleep very long, and even when you woke up at five in the morning due to an entire night of thrashing and nightmares that you’d never actually admit to having, he was always off somewhere. 

One morning, during an hour when not even your worst enemy deserved to be awake, you find yourself unable to sleep. It certainly wasn’t due to the fact that you had just woken up from a nightmare where you ended up killing your own lusus, oh no; it was because the stupid shitty human beds were just too damn comfortable. 

You opened your eyes (not at all because when you closed them you could see cherry red blood, your freakish mutant blood mixed with that of your lusus, covering everything in sight) and stared up at the ceiling for some time, ears slowly becoming adjusted to the soft pounding of running water. 

You glanced over, and sure enough, Strider wasn’t in his bed. Huh. So he was dumb enough to get up this fucking early…then how the fuck was he able to go to sleep at 2 in the morning almost every night. What reason could possibly be good enough to be awake at this hour? 

The water shut off, and you tried squeezing your eyes shut, only to be greeted with deep, bright, sticky blood all over the walls, all over you, all over Strider as the door opens and he steps out— 

\--Fuck it. So much for pretending to be asleep. You rolled onto your side and watched Strider as he shut the bathroom door behind him, clad in only a towel lazily wrapped around his waist and holy shit look at that body. 

You knew he did some sort of weird-ass training regiment, but that body looked like something to a male supermodel, with well-defined muscles on a lean, not at all stringy body. Except better, because his body wasn’t photoshopped to hell and back. Oh no, this was completely real, and you were silently thanking every deity out there for your ability to see fairly well in the dark. 

Somehow, even though those fucking shades, he noticed you, and turned to you, impassive as ever. If you weren’t so embarrassed at being caught staring, you probably would have wondered just what you would have to do in order to break that icy chill around him. “Pay up.” He barked suddenly, and you find yourself jumping. 

“What in the holy bulge munching hell are you going on about now?” You snapped at him, grateful for his shitty human night vision so he couldn’t see the way your face was probably bright red. 

“This show isn’t for free,” he gestured to himself, “so pay up. But just for you, I’ll offer a discount. Five bucks.” 

“Fuck you!” 

“That’ll cost extra.” 

For once, you ended up at a loss for words. However, you managed not to miss the way his lips actually did crack upward in a lopsided smirk as he grabbed some clothes out of his drawers and returned to the bathroom. 

A few minutes later, he came out fully clothed, and you figured that the only reason why you were disappointed was because you hadn’t gotten laid in the last few months. 

He grabbed his shoes and a pair of socks from out of another drawer, and sat down on the foot of your bed, not his, as he started to put them on. “Why exactly are you up right now?” He asked. 

“I wanted to stare at the ceiling and contemplate just which god I punched in the cartilage nub in a previous life to deserve a roommate as fantastically shitty as you.” 

He was silent for a little while, and the only sound in the room is the gentle hum of the heater and the sound of him tying his shoelaces together, which you never imagined could have been so loud until now. It was practically begging for someone to put it out of its misery, so you ended up blurting out the first thing that popped into your head. 

“I get nightmares a lot. Why else do you think I don’t sleep much?” You tried to retract the words, but you found out that there is no rope that can magically drag your words back down your protein chute. Someone should make one, so random fuckups like you didn’t have to always shove your foot in your mouth the second you opened you mouth. 

He snorted. “I know the feeling.” 

“You get them too?” 

“Night terrors,” he said simply. “Every single night. Runs in the family. They’re not nightmares. There’s no big monster you can chase away to make everything all better. Nothing you can pin it down on, but the aftereffects are sure there.” 

You nodded, listening intently as he continued. 

“Bro taught me early on that it’s best to distract yourself, so every time it happens I wake up, go take a shower, and then go outside and train until it’s not so bad.” 

That explains the shitty swords he always has lying around. You thought it was just some freaky Strider ritual, but yet again, you were wrong. 

“That…does sound like a good idea,” you said quietly. 

“How does a lesson in handling the shittiest sword you’ve ever seen sound?” 

You couldn’t help but crack a smile at that. “I have more important things to do with my time then spend it with you, dickprince.” 

You actually didn’t, and you both knew it. Within five minutes you were both up on the roof sparring with broken swords, swearing at the top of your lungs and not giving a shit if the entire dorm below you woke up. 

It was the best you had felt in a while. 

* 

You knew it was finally time for Valentine’s day to roll around when Terezi texted you ‘3V3RYTH1NG 1S R4SB3RRY BL4ST 4ND CH3RRY D3L1GHT >:]’ in the middle of class, completely out of nowhere. 

Your next tip towards Valentine’s Day looming steadily closer was when Tavros came up to you, asking for romantic advice, because, “you, uh, watch so many romantic, uh, movies, so I think you could, help me best.” 

Which, of course, you fucking could. You were like the Troll Millionaire Matchmaker, except you paired broke college students together instead of rich, snobby assholes who couldn’t figure out what romance was if it clubbed them in the head. 

You figured out it was Valentines Day when you returned from your classes that day only to find the biggest box of chocolates you had ever seen sitting on your bed. You watched it as if a giant tap-dancing bomb was going to jump out of it, dance a little jig for you, and then blast you to the fucking moon. 

After about two hours of waiting for that bomb, you decided that it was safe. You opened the lid slowly, carefully, not at all expecting a tray of the fanciest chocolate you had ever seen arranged in the shape of a morbidly obese V. 

You scanned over the list on the inside of the lid; a precise diagram of each chocolate (there must be at least a hundred of them in there), what type it is, and what backwoods country it came from. Half of the names you couldn’t even pronounce, and the other half you believed weren’t even real places, just a random string of consonants some random shithead made up in the throes of a nervous breakdown, hoping to exact his revenge on a cruel and unforgiving world by duping chocolate-receivers everywhere. 

Well not this time, buddy. Karkat Vantas was onto your little tricks. 

Actually, you were onto his little tricks, until you popped one of the chocolates into your mouth and left the world to float straight up into cloud nine. 

Five chocolates later, you are in complete ecstasy. However, to prolong the pleasure of this unholy delight, you firmly secure the lid back onto the box and find another note. 

still waiting for those flowers 

You went out and bought the biggest bouquet of roses you could find. 

You weren’t there to see his actual reaction when he saw them, but according to himself he swooned so hard he hit the floor and got a concussion. They air lifted him to the hospital, where he received brain surgery and a teddy bear for his valiant efforts in surviving. You didn’t believe him one bit, and that teddy bear was nowhere to be found, but you were kind of glad he liked the gift. 

* 

Over the past year, you had gotten pretty good at ignoring Strider whenever he gets a call from one of his _adoring_ fans. You always turned the volume up on the heart-covered MP3 player he ironically got you last Christmas, and focused on whatever set of notes were nearest to you at the time as he sweet-talked his way into getting some other token of love from his moronic music cult. 

But something about this time seemed off. You tried to keep your eyes trained on the messy scrawls all over your notebooks, but out of the corner of your eye you noticed something strange: him slouched down on his bed, suddenly boneless. 

You pulled your earbuds out in order to listen in, but you trained your eyes back on the papers in front of you. 

“Shit. Fuck. Shit, no, you have got to be kidding me. Alright, no, this is too far. He’s just playing, I swear – doing it all for irony’s sake to punk his kid brother.” 

Wait…he was actually giving a shit about something? And not doing it ironically, with no hint of sarcasm or aloofness? 

Shit. This had to be bad. 

You abandoned your notes in favor of watching him. He was silent, mouth just the slightest bit agape, and even from behind his shades you were certain he was staring off into space. 

He was like that for an eternity, and while you only had the vaguest idea as to what the voice on the other line was saying, you had to squash down the faintest stirrings of pity for him. No, Karkat, this wasn’t the time for pitying this douchebag. Whatever shit he was going through was serious, and you had to be there for him as a good roommate, not as a hopeless wriggler wanting his quadrants filled. 

You weren’t some desperate loser. You were Karkat fucking Vantas, and this was one of the few moments you couldn’t spend acting like a useless waste of space. 

Speaking of which, you were sitting there gawking at him like a useless waste of space. You made a quick mental note to berate yourself later, and went over to where he still sat; phone long abandoned at his side. 

“Mind doing me a favor?” 

You knew better than to try to reply with some asshole remark, so you didn’t. “What?” 

“Help me get my stuff together,” he said, the words rolling out of his mouth as if he couldn’t believe them himself. “Enough stuff for at least 3 days, probably more.” 

You nodded dumbly, unsure of what to say that wouldn’t betray the sudden rush of pity you felt for him. Really, sometimes you were just the biggest fucking loser on the entire surface of this miserable shitheap of a planet, and this was one of those moments. One bad thing happens to him; a single crack in his douchebag coolkid act and you act like you were flushed for him your entire life. 

Stupid Karkat, worst roommate – no, worst friend. Worst friend in the history of shitty friends. 

It didn’t take long for you two to get enough of his shit together to let him leave. You accompanied him down to the front of your dorm building, but started to regret it the instant an awkward silence settled over the two of you. You stood there in the wind and tried your best to ignore the way it whipped at you, howling with rage as if it could sense every doubt building up inside of you. 

Yeah, it was only at most a week, but as much as you hated to admit it, you two had been attached at the hip for the last year and a half. To just let him traipse off to whatever freaky, backwoods place his brother decided to move to in order to accomplish his dreams of filming the raunchiest puppet porn possible by himself felt _wrong_. 

The taxi pulled up to the curb way too quickly for your liking. 

Strider – no, Dave turned his head to look at you. “So…” He began, and you blinked at the realization that for once in his life, the pretentious windbag was out of words just like you. 

“Don’t…don’t do anything too dumb out there, alright?” 

“Can’t promise that. Out there in the wilderness all by myself? Before you know it you’ll get a text from a pack of crazed hillbillies trying to work out the intricacies of the modern cellphone while I’m tied to a tree quietly sobbing for prince asshole to come save me.” 

He tried to hide behind his words, but you shook your head and brought a single clawed finger to his mouth. 

“Oh my god, you are so obvious,” you sighed, biting down on your lower lip a bit too hard and ignoring the faint tang of iron on your tongue. “Keep the taxi guy busy while I go grab some clothes.” 

Twenty minutes later, you and Dave sat in the back of a small taxi that stank of sweat and smoke. 

It was going to be a long ride, but the second he made a quip insulting the taxi driver’s hat (“not even TZ would wear a hat that fantastically shitty and she’s blind”), you knew it was the right decision. 

* 

You’d never been in a hospital before, but after waiting for twenty minutes in the lobby, reading reviews of your favorite movies given by idiots who _clearly_ couldn’t appreciate the finer points of cinema, you decided that they lived up to their supposed hype. 

That is, the shitty wannabe daytime soap operas for teenagers were right; hospitals sucked ass. 

You were just about ready to rip the magazine you were reading in half when you heard footsteps coming towards you. You closed the magazine and threw it back onto the pile of disgraces you picked it up from, and by then Dave had slumped down into the sit next to you. 

“How is he?” You asked, trying to be as polite and courteous as possible. If his human-lusus or brother or whatever the fuck he was supposed to be called today was on the brink of death, you’d rather not piss him off and make him punch you in the cartilage nub. 

“Pretty banged up, you know. Broken bones, internal bleeding, passing in and out on consciousness, but he’s a Strider, and Striders don’t go down that easily,” he said, nonchalant as ever. 

Wait, what? What in the flying fuck was wrong with this guy? You couldn’t believe him! You felt a growl rising up in the back of your throat, fueled by anger and sweeps of pent-up rage against his douchebaggery that you were never able to unleash due to Egbert and Maryam’s constant meddling. 

It was time to let it out. 

“I’ve known you since fucking middle school, and I still don’t understand what the fuck goes through the black-hole of irony and bullshit that is your think-pan! You drop all of your classes to go to the one place in this entire stupid human country where freaks congregate to join in the great circle jerk that is ruining the childhood of millions of people via porn that would make even the kinkiest fuckers blush in embarrassment! And yet the moment you get here, you act as if everything is rainbows and fucking ponies – and don’t give me that offended look, Strider, I’ve caught you with your goddamn colorful pony stash under your bed before – when you find out that the one douchebag you actually care about in the world isn’t quite dead enough to be on life support! You are a _fucking freak_ !” You finished your rant, breathing heavily due to a sudden lack of air. You shot him your angriest, most platonically loathing glare, and he managed to surprise you yet again by keeping his fat protein chute shut for a while. 

He stared down at his lap for what seems like an eternity, and eventually heaved a heavy sigh. “Caught me red handed. I’m a fucking freak who can’t even stop being a huge prick long enough to care about his own brother almost dying.” 

Whoa, ouch. You didn’t expect there to be that much hurt in his voice. It made your blood-pusher twist up in pain, like he managed to shove his hands right into your chest and wrench every single bit of guilt out into your candy red blood. You could practically feel it speeding through your veins, infecting your entire body with the shittiest emotion known to man and troll. 

You were never good at this comforting thing, but you settled for awkwardly patting his shoulder. “If it helps, I’m a fucking freak as well. I must be the only troll on this entire planet with freakish human blood. I used to be able to hide it, but after puberty had its way with me I got stuck with these bright as fuck red eyes,” you explained bitterly, a small suspicion nagging at you that he already knew all of this, “the hemospectrum may be dead, but human and trolls alike give me these…looks, when they see my eye color. Hell, I’ve never even seen a human with red eyes before, so it’s out of place even for your ass-backwards race.” 

He paused, seeming to take in and process what you just told him like the oldest, shittiest computer than not even Sollux Captor, the lisping douchebag who lived down the hall from you two, could fix up. You were about ready to kill yourself from anxiety when he reached up, and in a single, cool motion, flicked his sunglasses off. 

He kept his eyes closed, and slowly, deliberately raised his head until he was facing you. You immediately noticed how pale his skin, the parts always hidden under shades, really was; so pale that if his entire body was that color, you were sure that he’d be able to pass off as a hornless rainbow drinker. 

You also noticed how similar his eyes were to yours; big and round, with heavy bags lining his lower lid. He looked like he had never gotten a decent rest in his life, which was…probably true, with the night terrors and all. 

Turned out, the similarities only multiplied when he opened his eyes and you found yourself staring at irises so brightly, bloody red that you realized just how similar the two of you really were, both hiding your emotions behind masks and facades to make yourselves seem stronger than you really were. 

Without his shades on, Dave looked so vulnerable, every single emotion flitting through his mind visible on his face. At that moment, he looked serious and determined, but with the slightest hint of apprehension and something you couldn’t quite identify hiding in the corners. 

If you pressed just a little bit closer, you were sure you could – and he didn’t seem to be objecting against the idea, leaning a bit closer to you himself. A few more inches, and the next thing you knew your lips were pressed against his and those bright red irises were gone, hidden under the shade of pale white eyelids. 

Though honestly, you were more concerned with the fact that he was kissing back, and wow it was almost like the two of you were made to fit together, even though it was far from perfect and the deeper you got into the kiss the more your teeth clacked and your noses bumped as you both tried to shift into better positions. 

He pulled away much too quickly for your liking, and for the first time in your entire friendship (if you could even call it a friendship now), Dave Strider had a content expression on his face. It wasn’t quite a smile, and it wasn’t even quite a smirk, but it was happier than you’d ever visibly seen on him and goddamnit that was a start. 

“I guess we can be fucking freaks together,” you said. 

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” he replied, and then you kissed again. 

It wasn’t exactly romcom material, or even romantic in the slightest, but he promised he’d make it up to you with dinner at the fanciest restaurant in town when you got back. 

* 

The two of you had been dating for two weeks (though one of those weeks had been spent down in freak capital watching over Dave’s Bro as you two made sure he didn’t die) before the news got out. 

You, Dave, Terezi, Tavros, Aradia, and that douchebag Captor from down the hall were having lunch at the only decent Chinese place within a radius of twenty miles when the news got out. 

Out of the blue, Terezi took a long, deep sniff. You didn’t think anything of it; she used that strange smell-and-lick-o-vision to see, so she was probably just figuring out what color the painting above her head was or something. 

Suddenly, she turned her attention to you, her jaw set in a firm line. “Karkles, you smell slightly off.” 

“No I don’t.” 

“This requires further investigation!” She announced, and just like that, she was leaning over the table and dragging her freaky serpent tongue up your cheek. You shuddered involuntarily at the sensation and felt your face contort into an expression that was probably as ugly as it felt, but you made no move to push her away. 

“Hate to break it to you, TZ, but now I’m the only one allowed to slobber all over Vantas’s face,” Dave said, gently pushing her down into her seat. She frowned at first, but once the words settled into her think-pan, she grinned her knife-sharp signature grin and cackled. 

“A shocking development, but not completely unexpected!” 

Tavros, however, didn’t feel the same, judging by his sudden gasp and wide eyes like a hoofbeast caught in headlights. “You two are, uh, involved?” 

“Flushed the deepest shade of red there is, straight out of one of his romcoms,” he replied, cool as ever, and you couldn’t help but smirk at his word choice. Damn right. 

“Never thought you’d be able to fill a quadrant, KK,” Sollux said, snickering. Aradia gave him a half-hearted pap on the arm. 

“He means he’s happy for you two,” she told you gently. 

“Good luck on filling the other three,” Captor said, this time receiving a pap on the face. 

“Fuck you, Captor.” 

“Thorry KK, but I don’t hate you enough for that.” 

Luckily for the lisping douche, Dave grabbed the hand you were going to punch him with and interlaced his fingers with yours. You decided that you would get your revenge later, after lunch. 

You never got your revenge, but on the plus side, after that, Dave started doing schmoopy stuff like that more often. 

(“I should have realized it you’re into that sappy shit sooner, given the fact that you watch Hitch at least once a week.” 

“It’s a fine piece of cinema, at least ten times better than the dumb shit you’re into.” 

“All for the sake of irony, Karkles dear.”) 

* 

One night, when Dave was out DJing at some frat party and probably getting drunk off his ass, you holed yourself up in your dorm, researching all you could on night terrors. 

You weren’t entirely sure what it was, but something was making them worse for him the last few months. Him managing to stay asleep for thirty minutes was a blessing, and the one time you tried to help (“Calm the fuck down, it’s fine! And stop fucking thrashing like a trapped hoofbeast, I’m just trying to help!”) ended terribly, to say the least. 

And since you would like to _not_ be a monumental fuckup of a matesprit, you started researching what you could do to make the night terrors more bearable. 

By the time he came back, utterly exhausted judging by the way he used the door instead of the window and didn’t even bother to try flash-stepping in, you could have been considered a fucking expert on how to treat night terrors. 

“You look like shit,” you observed, shutting down your husktop. It was only one in the morning, but you had a plan, and it didn’t involve wasting your life on the internet like you were prone to do. 

“What can I say, it was a wild party. Crazy bitches everywhere.” 

“Try to get some sleep for once.” Wow. You didn’t even know you could sound that gentle. 

He stared at you like you had grown another head and it was currently babbling at him in several different foreign languages at once. 

You thought nothing of the fact that you could tell that even through his shades. 

“I was reading up about night terrors, and…” You fumbled around for words that wouldn’t make you sound like a blushing teenage girl confessing to her first crush, and failed miserably. “Oh, fuck it,” you said instead, “just go to sleep and trust me, alright?” 

He hesitated for a while, just standing there and staring at you. Finally, he shrugged. “All right, but I’ve already tried the white noise bullshit. Doesn’t work.” 

You grunted in response, just to let him know you didn’t tune him out, and caught up on a bit of neglected homework as he undressed and changed into the sweatpants he always wore to sleep, throwing his other clothes into a small pile in the corner. 

Once he was in bed, it didn’t take long at all for him to fall asleep, and you turned off every single thing you could but a lamp at your desk in order to hear him better in case he woke up. Thankfully, it served another purpose; the quiet let you hear his breath even out into a steady rhythm, like the ticking of old grandfather clocks you had seen at museums. 

You took about fifteen minutes to get ready for bed yourself – no more, just in case the terrors started early. 

Though it didn’t matter, because forty-five whole minutes went by before something changed. 

You barely noticed it at first; there was only a quiet, faint thumping, muffled by the thick comforters Dave always kept on his bed. You felt like the biggest asshole in the world for letting it go on unnoticed for even just a minute, but you snapped your attention over to him the moment you did notice. 

He was gasping, thick and choked with sobs. The thumping was coming from him thrashing in bed, legs flailing about like snakes having seizures under the covers. 

You didn’t move, only watched, until he shot straight up in bed, chest heaving and tear tracks marking their path down the planes of his cheeks. He stared straight ahead of him into nothing, never moving or even blinking. 

You got up and slowly went over to his bed, sitting down on the very edge of the mattress. It thankfully wasn’t a complete piece of shit, so it didn’t squeak even under your weight. 

“Dave?” You whispered, reaching a hand out and putting it on his shoulder. He flinched at the touch, but didn’t move away, which you took as a good sign to keep going. He didn’t say a word, even when you scooted onto the bed until you were sitting next to him. 

You carefully wrapped your arms around him, freezing in place with him as he tensed up. It took a few minutes, but he eventually relaxed, and with a deliberate gentleness you didn’t know you possessed, you brought your thumb up to his cheek and wiped away the tears. 

“It’s okay,” you murmured gently, maneuvering yourself so your chest was pressed against his back, “it’s going to be all right.” 

He stopped crying, but his breaths were still ragged and heavy, forcing themselves out of his chest so hard it had to have hurt. 

You didn’t know how long you sat there, head pressed against his shoulder, listening to his blood-pusher hammer away in his chest. You kept quiet, unsure of what to say outside of the most generic, unhelpful hoofbeastshit sayings out there. When you were a wriggler, Crabdad calmed you down by clicking his claws to the melody of whatever lullaby first popped into his head, but it wasn’t like you could do that and you sure as fuck couldn’t sing to save your life. 

Instead, you found his hand and squeezed it, reminding him that yes, you were real, and no, you weren’t going to hurt him. 

It took a long while for his breathing to return to normal, and for his blood pusher to slow the fuck down and return to a rate that didn’t come with the threat of a stroke. He didn’t move a muscle until it did, and even then it was only to squeeze your hand back. 

“Better?” You muttered into his back. 

He swallowed thickly. “Yeah, I just—“ 

“Go back to sleep.” 

“What?” 

“You heard me. Go back to sleep. If it happens again, I’ll be here. Okay?” 

Your own blood-pusher plummeted deeper into your gut with each second that passed. You were just about to take back what you said and crawl back to your own bed to stew in your shame when he let out a small, “okay, but you need to move so I can lay back down.” 

You scooted away and allowed for him to settle into his bed before you pulled the covers back and joined him. Again, you pressed yourself against his back and threw an arm over him, pulling him as close to you as physically possible. 

“Who said you got to be the big spoon?” 

“I did,” you bit back. “I don’t give a shit if you’re taller,” and you especially didn’t give a shit about the fact that he was a whole four inches taller than you, nubby horns included, “I get to be the big spoon. Now shut the fuck up and go to sleep.” 

He snorted in amusement. “God, Vantas, you have me whipped.” 

You smiled into his hair, and lazily pressed a kiss to the back of his head. “Fuck yeah I do.” 

For the first night in years, you didn’t have nightmares when you finally fell asleep. 

* 

Somewhere in the middle of your third year of college, it hit you like a freight train carrying two tons of pure, undiluted shitty friend solution: you hadn’t talked to Egbert since the day he left you and Dave standing in the middle of an airport, arguing over who got to sit shotgun next to Harley as she laughed at the both of you in the background. 

You looked over to Dave, sprawled over the couch-formerly-known-as-your-bed watching the fucking wedding channel again. Irony or not, you couldn’t stand WeTV Wedding Sundays, nor could you stand the six-hour long marathons of Bridezillas he insisted watching. 

“It’s been over a sweep since I last talked to Egbert,” you said solemnly, looking down at your hands like they were the ones who were going to bitch you out, not Dave. “Fuck, I still keep in touch with Kanaya and Jade, but not him. God, I am the shittiest best friend in the history of shitty best friends.” 

“Really? I talked to him just last week,” he replied, still focusing on the bitch throwing a temper tantrum like a stubborn wriggler on the tv. “He’s still the same as he ever was.” 

“How did he react to us?” You asked, curious for reasons you couldn’t really explain. Sure, you once had a crush on him in high school, but that was only for two years and an entirely different quadrant than the one you and Dave were in! Besides, he practically toted his Not-A-Homosexual-Sorry-Karkat saying around school like some sort of victory flag. ‘Sorry, Karkat, but I’m not into wing-wang, especially not of the freaky gray alien variety!’ 

Okay, he didn’t say _exactly_ that, but the meaning was there. And he did say wing-wang, which is the stupidest word to ever exist and deserves to be shot in the head with the largest gun at the first opportunity available. 

Dave’s hand flailed around the couch, eventually grabbing the remote and turning the TV off. “Dunno. Wanna find out?” 

“You mean that you didn’t tell your best friend that you hooked up and are now having sloppy interspecies makeouts with his other best friend from high school.” 

“Your point?” 

You sighed. “Never mind. My title as shittiest friend in the history of shitty friends has been revoked and given to you.” You went over to the desk and fumbled around, eventually finding a sticky note and scribbling down Dave’s new title (Douche of Friendship). You glanced back, and a malicious grin crept over your face as he watched you in growing suspicion. 

On the way over to him, you made sure to turn your husktop on, and when you stood over him, you took a moment to revel in the fact that for once you were looking down at him and not the other way around. With that small victory thoroughly cherished, you leaned down and kissed him right on the mouth, pulling away just as he was about to slip you some tongue. 

“Fucking tease,” he muttered, and you responded by sticking his new title right to his sunglasses. He swore, loudly, and you grabbed his wrists before he could tear it off. 

“No,” you admonished him as if you were scolding a barkbeast who just pissed all over the floor, “bad.” You shook your finger at him for good measure, and he tried his best to give you a withering glare behind his half-obscured shades. 

“Woof.” 

“You know what we’re going to do?” 

“Woof?” 

You took a few seconds to execute a double facepalm combo before explaining. “You’re going to go sign onto Skype, and the two of us are going to show Egbert your new title as well as our current relationship status.” 

“While we’re at it, we might as well beat the little nerd at his own game and increase our prankster’s gambit.” 

“Oh god,” you groaned, “he still uses that fucking embarrassing prankster’s gambit?” 

“Yeah, and last time I Skyped with him, he snogged his freaky new girlfriend in front of me for five fucking minutes. I was about to shut the computer off when he finally stopped. Doubt it was a prank, but it was still annoying as fuck.” 

An idea popped into both of your heads at the same time, and you dragged him up off of the couch and rushed over to your now-active husktop, signing him into his Skype almost immediately. 

Dave clicked on a small green bubble with the name ectoBiologist (which, you had to admit, was slightly marginally less retarded than his old screenname) and started up a videochat. 

“Sup bro,” Dave said into your shitty mic, making the boy on the screen look towards wherever the fuck he decided to set his computer at. 

He grabbed his glasses off of the nearby drawer and put them on, squinting at you for a few moments before breaking out into the brightest, stupidest grin you’d ever seen. 

And you had been friends with him since you were barely four sweeps old, so that was saying a lot. 

“Hi Dave!” He said, rushing over to his computer. Wow, he looked exactly the same as he did last time you saw him, even down to the shitty haircut that looked like he had gotten into an intense brawl with several pairs of scissors and lost. “And Karkat, too! Man, it’s been forever since we last talked! What, three, four years? Oh man, so much stuff has happened, you wouldn’t believe it-“ 

“Egbert if you don’t shut up right now I’m throwing my husktop out the window and never talking to you again,” you growled, glaring at him while Dave tried to snicker as quietly as possible. 

He grinned sheepishly. “Oh,” he breathed out in a whoosh of nervous laughter, “sorry. Guess I got a bit too excited.” 

“Understatement of the fucking century,” you replied. 

“Anyways, Dave, I know you love being ironic and stuff, but putting a sticky note on your shades is pretty dumb, if you ask me.” 

“It’s my new title,” Dave explained. “Gonna make it my new gamertag on XBox Live while I fuck with emotionally stunted 14 year old boys.” 

He laughed, still that high pitched stupid as fuck giggle that turned into a snort at the end. “Man, that sounds like a lot of fun!” 

You spent a good half an hour just catching up with him, and letting him ramble at you about everything new in his life: his major, every single girlfriend he’d gotten over the past three years, his new friends, any and all new movies starring Nic Cage and Matthew Mcconaughey, and everything else which he deemed important for you to know. Dave was mostly silent, poker-facing while you casually slung your most vile insults at Egbert. 

Oh yeah. That was why you were friends; insults never stuck to him. 

You and Dave were waiting for the right moment to pull out all the stops, and it finally came when the conversation dropped into a slower-paced lull. 

“So, have either of you started dating anyone yet?” He asked, consciously making sure to keep it gender-neutral. Thank god he didn’t forget the concept that gender doesn’t matter to trolls, even though you haven’t drilled it into his head since high school. 

You and Dave exchanged looks, his grin matching yours so closely it was like looking into a funhouse mirror that made you into a squishy pink monkey. “Yeah, we have…” 

You dived at each other, and John gasped in fright, squeaking out a, “wait!” before realizing just what you two were getting at. 

It wasn’t anywhere close to the best sloppy makeout session you had…well, had, but the look on Egbert’s face priceless. 

It was the highlight of that entire month, even if he flushed and stuttered whenever he saw either of you for two whole weeks. 

* 

“Fuck it, I’ll never get this done!” You yelled louder than normally, shoving your books off the desk and letting them fall in an ungraceful heap on the floor. “Finals are two weeks away, and the professor suddenly drops on us ‘oh, by the way, here are ten chapters we haven’t covered’ like it was some kind of surprise wriggling day party! I’m surprised he didn’t give us big pointy hats with fuck you written in big letters across the font and party favors with razors, because I am _this_ close to fucking ending it all right now!” 

“Vantas, no need to flip your shit,” Dave replied, lying down on the couch and playing fucking Mario Kart, the lucky shitstain. He was an art major, no big fancy tests or bulge-sniffing, foot rutting professors for him! No, just rainbows and fucking butterflies as he spends his study time drawing his shitty comics and posting them on the internet for hipster douchebags to enjoy! 

“No need to flip my shit?” You repeated, incredulous and red-faced with rage. “There is every need to flip my shit! I know you’re planning on wasting your life DJ’ing at shitty clubs and selling t-shirts with unbelievable abominations to the very concept or art on them, but this is my degree at stake if I don’t get this shit! This is my _life_!” 

“No, seriously. Calm the fuck down. Take some fucking chill pills, or at least get shitfaced or something, jesus.” 

You felt the rage building up inside of you, white-hot and leaving you feeling strangely empty. John had said that you had mellowed out over the last few years and, wow, he wished he could have been there to see the transition, but you had never thought of it like that. 

You had never thought of it like anything. 

You hadn’t known it was gone until it returned, vindictive and spiteful. 

You had forgotten how hard it was to control what came out of your fat mouth with that feeling rolling around in your body, burning your vocal cords and rotting your think-pan. 

“Getting shitfaced is the last thing I need right now, Strider! Sweet lusus of fuck, _you_ are the last thing I need right now! You want to know something, Strider? You are an unhelpful nookslurping pitiful squishy pink excuse of a matesprit, and the biggest thing currently taking root in my think-pan _instead_ of fucking useful information I need to know in order to have a life _outside of college_ is the fact that you don’t fucking pity me enough to make a single mention of what’s going to happen to us once college ends!” 

You were breathing heavily at the end, feeling empty and brittle, like your insides had been scooped out and displayed for him to see. It wasn’t the first time you felt that way, so vulnerable and weak, but it was definitely the first time it happened on complete accident, and over something so fucking…trivial. 

He took off his shades, actually fucking reached up and took off the shades that were always fucking glued to his eyes, and stared at you. Full out gawked at you, open-faced and pale with that shitty tan line that you pitied so much because, really, that wasn’t attractive in the slightest and- 

“-Karkat Vantas, I think I’ve officially met the biggest fucking idiot on the planet. You could run for President, and the only thing on your campaign posters would be ‘I was dropped on my head by my lusus when I was a wriggler.’ Everyone would vote for you, just because it’s the truest thing they had ever read in their lives.” 

“What.” You said, your voice completely flat as all of your thoughts came screeching to a halt. 

“Which is why you’re the most pitiable thing I’ve ever met in my life, even more pitiable than the time TZ dragged us out to a museum and almost cried when they wouldn’t let her lick the classic works of art without being arrested.” 

“That was pretty fucking sad,” you had to admit, a smile coming onto your face and hey wait no you were supposed to be angry! 

“I teared up, man. I fucking teared up like you do every single time we watch The Lion King.” 

“Mufasa was the best king, and don’t think I don’t hear you sob when Simba tries to wake him up!” 

He was smiling at you, for once letting his guard completely, 100% down. it was kind of strange, even after all this time, to see him out in the open. 

“Another reason why I pity you, Vantas. And really, are you dumb enough to think that you’re not getting stuck doing my dishes every night even after we graduate? You’re too good of a maid too pass up.” Still grinning like a fucking idiot, he got up from his seat, Mario long forgotten and doomed to go careening off Rainbow Road to his death, and came over to stand next to you. 

You really liked it when he said pity and not love. Pity was more familiar, more honest, like he was actually making an attempt to reach out to you. 

“It’s only two weeks, Karkat. Two weeks, and finals are over. Two weeks, and then we’ll start looking for apartments so we don’t have to live in your car when we graduate, or worse, go back to live with Bro.” He shuddered. “I got too used to not waking up every morning with puppet dong in my face.” 

He hugged you tight, pressing your face to his chest since he was standing up and you weren’t. “Until then, you’re not allowed to off anyone, especially not yourself.” 

“Not even Captor?” You asked, smiling into his t-shirt. 

“Not even Captor. ‘Sides, you don’t even hate him.” 

“Oh, go shut the fuck up.” 

His promise was honestly the only thing that made those last two weeks bearable for you. 

A few months later, after you threw (more like were forced to by several different people, and Dave only agreed if he got to give everyone ironic party hats) a huge apartment-warming party that practically everyone went to, even Egbert and Maryam and Crabdad and Bro, you realized something. 

Dave Strider was the main reason that you were able to get through college. 

(A few days later, he told you the same.) 


End file.
